Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fence and to a fence mounting arrangement for use on a circular, tilting arbor table saw. Rip fences have long been used on table saws for providing a fixed guide against which the wood work piece can be held during the ripping operation. Generally, prior art guides have comprised an elongated fence having two opposed, parallel faces that extend across the saw table from the front to the rear. The fences have themselves then been secured either solely to a guide bar attached to and extending parallel to the front of the table or to guide bars secured to both the front and back of the saw table. Commonly, the front guide bar would have a measuring scale so that the operator could ascertain the distance between the fence and the cutting blade. Such fence constructions were, however, often deficient in that true parallelism between the fence and the blade was not maintained when the fence was moved between cutting positions. Further, when it became desirable to remove the fence arrangement from the table, such as, for example, when moving it from one side of the blade to the other, it was necessary to move it the entire length of the mounting guide bar in order to effect such removal.
One fence system which did improve the reliability of maintaining parallelism when changing fence positions is that described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,206.910. In this system, an elongated fence having parallel surfaces extending across the saw table is attached to an elongated shoe carried on a mounting rail that is secured to a bracket that is in turn secured to a bracket on the saw table. The shoe contains an adjusting pad adjacent each outer end and a cam operated clamping shoe midway between the pads to obtain a three-point clamping arrangement. By disengaging the cam, the entire shoe and fence can be removed from the end of the mounting rail.